


A Holiday triptych for Winter months

by Arnica



Series: Holidays for the lost [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Christmas, Holiday Fic Exchange, M/M, other holiday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 09:32:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnica/pseuds/Arnica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The air is sharp with the smell of the sea and cold sand as his mother opens the door and there's nothing left for it but to smile and step out into the night...You're quibbling over semantics again. Eat your cookie and go back to bed...The air around them smells strange, sweet and musky on top of the salt and smoke already hanging in the air and Ianto reels back away from the smoke, light headed. Jack stands next to fire, almost close enough to touch and stares into the flames, wreath pulled off his head and clutched tightly in a white knuckle grip...</p>
<p>Three moments from three different winter holidays</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Holiday triptych for Winter months

**Author's Note:**

> For iantojjackh over at the Torchwood_fest holiday Exchange gift. I couldn't pick a prompt, so I picked a trio and connected them. For the prompts
> 
> 5 Jack- life in Boeshane Peninsula  
> 6 Ianto- family life as a kid/teenager  
> 3 Jack/Ianto- the first time they say I love you and/or first time they make love (opposed to it just being sex)
> 
> Got to join in the Torchwood fest last minute as a replacement writer and I'm sure everyone knew exactly who I was since my fic actually follows last years Holiday gift 'And we throw our regrets to the waves' but fuck it, I really just like the Holiday for the Lost and when I saw prompt 5 I just knew that's what I was doing.

_**1) Boeshane Peninsula, The Vigil for the Lost** _

He should have skipped the lottery, should have insisted that his mother leave his name out of running. Instead it was _his_ name pulled and tonight it's him that everyone will be watching, his voice that's going to have to carry the list this year and for just a moment the boy stares past his reflection in the mirror, fingertips tapping nervously on the data cube sitting on the edge of his desk. It's got the official seal of the Time Agency embedded into all six surfaces so that the holographic insignia floats above whichever face is upwards. It arrived today, hand delivered by a courier who complained about how the sand was _everywhere_ like they weren't on the edge of the largest desert in the entire solar system and he's refused to let himself so much as touch it all day. He can't afford to be distracted by success or crushed by failure tonight.

Not when the year has been so hard. Not when the list is so damn long this year. He can't be distracted, can't leave anyone out.

He hates every second he spends brushing his hair up into something formal enough to be respectful without it looking like he's been fussing with it. Any other year and he'd be walking his mother down the street, leaving her under the helpful eye of their closest neighbor and heading off along for one of the smaller coves. Instead he's fussing with the waistband on the long loose pants, fussing with the straps on his vest, and debating over which goggles will look better with the slightly old fashioned outfit that was his father's because he's never bought himself a set of holiday clothes. Doesn't need them when he normally spends the better part of the night alone among the dunes.

“You look...very much like your father.” And for the first time in years his mother looks very much like he remembers her, from back when their family was twice the size it is now. Her hair is more white than chestnut now, but the carefully tucked roll that cradles the evergreen wreath on her head looks the same as he remembers from his childhood. She's got her holiday clothes arranged neatly, no seams he needs to adjust, no buttons threaded through the wrong holes and he wants, desperately, to sweep his mother up in his arms and demand she stay like this but good days like this are further apart the older he gets. He's afraid to startle her out of her fragile grip on the here and now. “Your hair...it's gotten so long.” Long enough that even pulled up the ends of it twitch and sway just centimeters above his shoulder blades. His mother reaches up, tugging playfully at the base of the lopsided plait he's managed to pull his spill of sun bleached hair into and he sinks down onto his bed, gaze locked on her face hungrily as the corner of her mouth, so much like his in shape, quirks up in exasperation. “No wonder you just wear it loose if this is the best braid you can do.”

Their hands are alike as well, palms narrow and fingers long although his are not quite twice the size of his mother's now. He lets his mother's deft hands twist the fall of his hair back into something like a topknot, brushing a curl of fringe back from his face. There's a smile in her eyes that he hasn't seen in a very long time as she bends forward, brushing her lips across the hollow of his temple and the corner of the data cube digs into his palm as his mother presses it into his hand and closes his fingers around it.

“You're going to have to learn to do your own hair if you're running away to join the Time Agency or cut it all off.”

“I don't even know if I got in. I'm saving it for after the ceremony to look. I don't...I don't even know if I'd go anyway Ma, I've got you and there's Dad's generators at the wind farm that need to be watched...” Her hands close over his, squeezing tightly until the edge of the data cube dig painfully into his palm. His mother's eyes are intense as she stares at him in the mirror, overly bright in the way that makes his stomach drop with despair that he's losing her again.

“Don't you dare doubt yourself. You are my beautiful, brilliant boy and I don't tell you often enough how proud of you I am. You will be the first Time Agent from Boeshane and you will be so great at it that they will wonder why their whole Agency isn't from here.” He snickers under his breath at the exaggeration, sighing in relief as his mother rests her cheek on the top of his head before squeezing him tightly, violet eyes clear again. “Alright you, on your feet. They can't start without you this year.” He pushes to his feet and bites the corner of his lip as he looks down at the part on the top of his mother's head, wishing she hadn't gotten so small somewhere along the way.

“I'm glad you're here tonight Ma.”

“I am too baby.” She threads her arm through his and he leads his mother through the dim, cool sprawl of their home towards the stairs leading up to the sand room above ground. The walls flicker with the firelight outside, a couple hundred families gathered outside the door with their own small fires cradled in large punched metal lanterns. He checks his hair one last time and helps his mother into the thick black cape by the door, fussily adjusting the edges of the hood until she swats his hand away and puts her hand on the knob. He hovers behind her, an entire childhood of being told a man without a cloak is a dead man wars with the very reasonable part of himself that knows there a blood red one tailored just for him waiting just outside the door. The air is sharp with the smell of the sea and cold sand as his mother opens the door and there's nothing left for it but to smile and step out into the night. The winds are silent tonight and the planet has spun into the dark zone just outside of the light from either moon for the first half of the night, leaving the loose cold sand to lay still under their feet as everyone shifts closer. Almost seven hundred families, a little less than two and a half thousand people dressed all in black twisting and turning down the curving, organic streets lit only by the little lanterns in everyone's hands. For a moment he's frozen; garish and conspicuous in scarlet, bright where everything else is dark, remembrance instead of mourning and he smiles harder and cannot remember what the hell he's supposed to do next, much less the list of the lost. He's frozen under the eyes of everyone he's ever known, unfamiliar with the burning rush of embarrassment pumping through his veins until small familiar hands settle in the crook of his arm and it's impossible to feel awkward when everyone is staring at his mother in stunned disbelief that she's so much better than last time. He squeezes her against him and kneels. Lets the Mayor's pretty son fasten the oxblood red of the storm proof cape around his neck and winks at him because the boy is too pretty not to with his hair twisted tight against his scalp to try and contain an explosion of curls. His mother adjusts his hood, fussing just as much as he did before squeezing his forearm and leading him through the parting crowd until they stand arm and arm at the edge of town, their neighbors and friends spread out behind them as they all move at one towards the sea.

The Black Ocean lives up to its name. The only light in its depths are the bioluminescent glows of the things that live in it's depths. Out in the distance patches of algae and plankton spark reds and silvers on the waves and he takes his place inside the semi circle that traps him between a wall of fire and the impenetrable darkness of the ocean, separating him from everyone else. They come forward one at a time, families picked from the other lottery to set the driftwood separating himself from them alight with the fires they carried from their own homes. The water is silent as it laps against the shoreline and he thinks he's read somewhere that humanity's first oceans, the first waters of Earth, roared and crashed. He cannot imagine what they must have thought of the silent waters surrounding Boeshane. He knows most people have cheats that they use. Knows it's perfectly acceptable to have the massive amounts of information committed to a small data chip, but he doesn't need one. He's good with names, always has been and he doesn't need notes for his speech because it's going to be the same short invocation he says every year alone. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough to share.

Behind him the flames are leaping, throwing his shadow out across the water and he waits for their reflection to stabilize on the surface of the water. The silver glow of phosphorescence creeps closer to shore as trillions of microscopic lifeforms orient themselves towards the firelight and he takes a deep breath, kicking out of his low boots and dropping the weight of his cloak onto the sand. Stepping into the ocean takes every ounce of courage he has. The water is perfectly opaque, swallowing him into it's flat surface as he steps out, walking down the shallow slope of the seabed and out towards the silver glow of life on the ink black surface. He can stop now, doesn't have to do anything more than be willing to walk into the darkness and pour the water over his head, but he desperately wants to wade out to the center of the silver glow. It will feel, he's sure, like being the center of the universe. The water reaches his hips, before he's settled in the center and when he dips his hands in the shimmering water around himself, they glow when he lifts them free again. They're singing on shore, hymns older than the colonies sprawled across the galaxy and he wishes his father was here to see him glowing in the darkness and unafraid.

“My father said that 'to live in the hearts of those we love is to never die.' He told me once, when I was little, almost too little to really remember, that when we come together like this at the edge of the sea, it's to throw our regrets to the waves and let them wash away.” His voice carries over the silent waters and windless sands, traveling easily back to shore and the crowd just outside the flames as he makes his way back to the sand. It's firm and dry underfoot when he steps into place on the ocean side of the fires, folding himself onto his knees and raising his face to the sky. “He said it helps us separate the memories from the pain, so every year I try. Join me please. Give your regret to the sea.”

The list of the missing is first, longer this year than it's been in the last five. More people are gone, but less bodies have been recovered. Less casualties from the weapons fire, less parts later identified. Every name on the list is someone who might be alive somewhere. He stammers over his brother's name and forces himself to breathe deeply and keep going. The woman in charge of remembering the lost last year sobbed her way through the entire list, but never skipped a name despite losing two husbands and a child in that same year's raids. He can be at least as brave over an eight year old ache. The list of the dead is longer still and never gets shorter. Not when there are always families desperate enough for food and shelter to take the free homes and massive pile of start-up credits offered on the Boeshane peninsula, even if it means risking the raids. Behind him families are sobbing or moaning, speaking the names of their loved ones in chorus with him. The first moon has risen high in the sky, the second edging into view on the horizon before he speaks his last name and that's it. Families get to their feet in staggered clusters, grouping together in cliques or drifting away home and he stays on his knees, facing the sea and frighteningly certain that when he turns around his mother will have come over strange again.

“Are you going to stay there all night, or are you going to tell me what that cube says.”

“Hey Ma.” He lets himself relax into a sprawl as she folds herself neatly on the sand next to him, eyes still as clear as the moment she walked into his room. There are wisps of her hair floating around her face from where she and the other widows and widowers plucked their wreaths from their heads and tossed them into the fires.

“Hey nothing. Play it for me. I want to hear them say they want you.” He lets his mother wrap her arms around him, squeezing him crushingly tight as he fumbles the seal open and lets her read the words glowing in the air before him out loud while his own eyes hang on the word 'Congratulations'

“Momma...”

“You're out of this sandy little shit hole kiddo.” She twirls her fingers with his, squeezing his hands and he flinches back from the sing-song tone of 'kiddo'. He's only kiddo now when she's unwell. “Make the most of it, and remember where you came from. Promise that you'll look for your brother, and that you won't forget what it's like to be from a place where you spend three hours reading the names of your dead.”

“I promise.”

“You're a good boy kiddo. I don't tell you that enough.” She's starting to drift again, frighteningly fast, as if she'd been holding herself in the present by nothing more than force of will. “I'm going to head home now kiddo and wait for your father.” She's gone again, just that fast, back to the place where she's been waiting for her husband to bring her son home more and more often for the last eight years. He pushes himself up to his feet, tugging her up as well and wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

“Of course Ma. I'll walk you home...”

“No you won't. I can get myself home perfectly well young man. Don't forget who the parent here is. You go have fun and celebrate and I'll find my own way.” He wants to protest that the last two times she walked home on her own his mother ended up across the town at their old house where they lived when they were a much bigger family and needed the room but she spins on him, one finger held up imperiously. “You won't be here forever kiddo. Trust me to be fine without you. To be here waiting when Franklin and Grey come home.”

“Okay Ma. I love you.” He kisses the thin skin at her temple and forces himself to sit back down and stare at the words still floating in the air over the data cube while his mother wanders off into the holiday darkness alone.

_**2) Cardiff, Christmas Eve** _

Only the top half of the lights on the tree in his sister's flat are blinking. The tangles of multicolored lights ringing the bottom of the slightly lopsided tree glow solid and steady and Ianto desperately wants to get up and find the strand of blinkers mixed in with the regular lights, find someway to make half the tree stop going dark on and off, as he's trying to sleep on Rhiannon's too short lumpy couch that he's pretty sure her loser husband found rubbish picking. The frame of the couch's arm is digging into the side of his head through the old, flat pillow Rhi dug out of the bottom of her closet and he flops himself over onto his back, wishing that it were his bed instead and watches the flat white stucco ceiling flash on and off with little splashes of color. In the flat upstairs his sister's neighbors are fighting again and he doesn't understand how they ever get anything settled when they're angry since the man starts screaming at her in Spanish and then she starts screaming back in Afrikaans. The old woman on the first floor has fallen asleep with her telly too loud again and Ianto can faintly hear Burl Ives singing up through the registers. Seems the only thing the metal piping is good for since there's no heat coming off them.

The floor in the kitchen creaks and he looks over, smiling at his sister as she hovers in the doorway. Her hair is tangled half over her face, the hem of the black plaid nightshirt swinging around her knees as she pauses and yawns.

“ 'S cold, so I'ma turn the oven on.” She's been heating the flat this way more and more often since their slumlord property manager hasn't been out to the flat in months despite Rhiannon calling three times a week for the past two and a half weeks to complain that she has a three month old son and no bloody heat in her flat. “Come on, we'll have some cookies or something.” Ianto rolls off the couch, tugging at the too small pajama bottoms he should have thrown out more than a year ago, except that his mum bought them and as long as he can still squeeze into them, he's going to. He drags his blanket out with him because he knows Rhiannon's left hers on the bed for the baby, tossing half of it it over her shoulder as he flops down in the folding chairs she's spun away from the kitchen table and set up in front of the open maw of the oven, the heating coil in the bottom glowing a baleful orange as it begins working its way to hot.

“This place is a fucking slum.”

“Wow, I'm _so_ glad I've got you here to tell me that this unheated roach trap where none of my neighbors speak English is a slum. Shut up and eat your cookie.” The cookie jar is on the table behind them, but the kitchen's small enough that he doesn't have to get up, just use his stupidly long arms to reach behind him and snag it off the edge of the vinyl folding table stuck between the two windows. Ianto reaches in, fishing out a Christmas tree with it's green frosting sticking it firmly to a lopsided snowflake. He eats them together like a delicious frosted sandwich, watching his sister flail from the corner of his eye as she tries _not_ to watch him shovel a cookie sandwich into his maw. “You're mixing green and blue frosting.”

“You're OCD, I swear to god you are.”

“Says the kid who folds his socks and underwear and puts them away from light to dark.”

“Shut up.” He demolishes the last of the tree-flake fusion and goes back in for a snowman, watching his sister nibble a round ornament, picking off the little edible ball bearings that she shouldn't have even bothered with since she hates them.

“ _You_ shut up. So...I was thinking maybe we should do dinner here tomorrow night instead of everyone going back to the house. You know he won't have cooked anything and we'll have to do the whole thing anyway, let's just do it here and call Da when the food's done.”

“You're so hard on him Ianto. Cut Daddy some slack, he's _trying_.”

“Trying to open another bottle.” He flinches as his sister snatches the cookie jar from his hand, glaring at him over it.

“He's trying, Ianto. It's still hard for him, okay? We had each other when mummy died. I took care of you and no one took care of him.”

“Because he didn't want to let us. He wanted to drink more instead of just being sad like the rest of us and he'll be hungover by the time we get home and nothing will be cooked. He and Johnny will be asleep in the living room all day while we try to make something for dinner because dad will have forgotten to defrost the food again _and_ he'll bitch every time David cries.”

“I know you're not happy most the time kid. I can see it, okay?” His sister's voice is thick and he doesn't like himself very much right now. He stares at the snowman in his hand and doesn't eat it because no one who whines at their sister until she's sad deserves another cookie, but he can't just put it back. “I know you still miss mummy because I do too and I know that you just want things to be normal, like on the telly, but life isn't actually like that Ianto. Not for most of us. In real life you live in shitty second floor walkups where no one speaks English until you save enough money to live somewhere nicer, you work jobs you hate where you never see your family and everything's hard, okay? I'm sorry he's drunk and you hate it. I don't like it either, but he doesn't hit you, he doesn't fight with you, and he works _two_ jobs so you don't have to live on this side of town like we do.”

“Fucked if I know how. His hands _shake_ when he's sober too long. I saw it. I had to open his bottle for him a couple weeks ago.”

“I'll talk to him again Ianto.” Rhiannon's hand used to feel very big when she'd place it on the back of his neck and rub. Now it just feels kind of small and soft. “Okay? I'll talk to him tomorrow, just give him a chance tomorrow, okay? Do it for me. And eat that cookie you're playing with. You can't not eat when you think someone's mad at you Ianto, that's how people get eating disorders. I saw it on tv.” That tacky plastic clock that plays flat tinny recordings of birdsongs on the wall begins twittering obnoxiously, chiming out midnight. “Midnight. Happy Christmas smallest of my siblings.”

“ _Only_ of your siblings.”

“You're quibbling over semantics again. Eat your cookie and go back to bed or Father Christmas is taking the gaming system under the tree right back to the hock where she found it.”

“I've got a what?! Which one, what'd you get me?” He wants a PS2 desperately but swears he won't make a visibly disappointed face if it's an N64.

“Go to bed and find out in the morning.”

Sleep is fleeting and shallow on his sister's couch. He wakes up every time Rhi paces past the living room door and forgets about the creaky board, although he pretends like he doesn't. He hears it when Johnny comes up the stairs, heavy boots clomping a little harder than normal, and lies with the blankets tugged up around his ears, watching their silhouettes through the gaps in the tree's lit branches as his sister sets the leftovers from dinner on the table.

“Eating in the kitchen with the lights off? Your brother's on the couch again, isn't he?”

“He wanted to spend Christmas eve with his new nephew.”

“He didn't want to be alone in the house again you mean. Your Da has to do better with that kid Rhia. He's skipping class, stealing shit, getting arrested and _we're_ the ones bailing him out because your old man can't be arsed to climb out of his bottle and check on his son.”

“Don't start in on my father.” Ianto wishes he were asleep. That the old half deaf Laotian woman downstairs was still listening to Rudolph on repeat too loud, or that the couple upstairs would start shagging loudly again. Anything to keep from hearing his sister and her husband fighting in those quiet too sharp whispers.

“Merideth's not a bad man pet, but he's been a rubbish father to that kid lately and boys that age need a man to show them how men act. Otherwise they end up fucking up at school, running around with punks and hoodlums and getting caught stealing electronics and your Da doesn't even notice! I bet Ianto hasn't even told him he's suspended and you won't put not a quid against me if I bet you he hasn't noticed, will you? I've already told you he can stay with us.” Everything in him freezes. Johnny, who he would have sworn has never liked him, is offering to let Ianto move into their ugly, cramped, too small rubbish flat.

“I want him too, but he'd _hate_ it. I mean, he'd be happy at first not to be home with dad, but you know how my brother is. He's got to have everything just a certain way all the time. By the end of the second week he'd be awful to be around. He'd want his room, his bed, his clothes...we don't have room and he'd feel too bad to go home when he's had enough.”

“Well, maybe not.” His brother in law's voice is heavy with promise and the light over the sink flips on. Ianto blinks twice and watches Johnny clomp back to the table and dig deep in his pockets before dropping something small and silver in Rhiannon's hands. “Happy Christmas baby.”

“What's...John, this is an uncut key.”

“That's because we haven't picked a place yet. I got approved for the loan baby. We can start looking as soon as the Hols are over. It's not a lot, but we can swing three bedrooms in an alright neighborhood, so talk to your brother. If you want to.”

He drifts back to sleep, warm, loved, and terribly confused.

_**3) Friog Wales, Vigil for the Lost/Christmas day** _

The annual holiday invasion attempt has come and gone and this is definitely scarier. Ianto tries to squeeze the steering wheel tighter only to glare down at his hands already clenched white knuckle tight around the leather ring, forcing himself to take a deep breath instead. Long fingers unlock from around the wheel and Ianto kills the engine, yanks the keys out of the ignition, and forces himself to get out of the car. There's a black sports bag in the back seat and he leans in, snagging it off the leather seats before heading off after Jack who's halfway down to the shore already, dragging a significantly larger bag behind him.

He's nervous, kind of, if by nervous he means palm-sweatingly-gut-churningly-vertigo-inducingly convinced that this is a bad idea. Ianto's been trying to talk himself into cool, rational behavior all day; reminding himself that this isn't anything new, that he did it last year with no idea what he was jumping into and that it's not any different than that.

Except for the fact that it is. It's _very_ different from last year because this thing he and Jack have between them is different this year. Last year Jack was his sexy, mysterious boss that he occasionally had amazing, mind blowing, _really_ fun sex with and who Ianto sometimes thought he might be getting in over his head for. This year Jack is his sexy, slightly less mysterious boss who moved himself and Ianto into one of the smaller, nicer safe houses on the edge of town when the Hub was under repairs and Ianto's building reduced to rubble by John Hart's pyrotechnics and then forgot to move himself back out. This year Jack's the person who's been in the other side of Ianto's bed for the last four months, who's clothes are all tangled with Ianto's in the laundry hamper and who Ianto is falling frighteningly hard for despite best efforts. The wind whipping down off the cliffs to the perfectly flat stretch of pebbled beach is cold. Cold enough to have Ianto tugging his coat around himself tighter, stumbling down the slick sandy path by the thin light from the waning moon.

Jack's already busy, coat left well off to the side and sleeves folded back across his forearms as he wanders around the small, inconvenient to reach inlet finding driftwood and dragging chunks of it through the sand. He whistles as he chucks it all together into a pile, grinning up at Ianto where he's hovering at the bend in the path where the last of the grass finally gives way to sand.

“I was starting to think you'd changed your mind about joining me.” There's enough relief in Jack's voice to trample right over the playful tone he's sure the immortal man was aiming for and that's enough to break the weird nervous tension that's been wrapped crushingly tight around Ianto all day.

“Nope.” He settles the bag that he hasn't been able to make himself peek into on the sand carefully next to Jack's, slipping off his tie and balling it up in the pocket of his suit jacket before dropping it on top of Jack's. “So..?”

“So come help me get the fire ready.”

They take turns using the one shovel Jack remembered to bring to drag a crescent into the sand, lining it with the tarp wrapped bundle of fir and pine branches Jack wrestles out of his duffel with a grunt of victory, topping that over with an entire bag of timothy from the pet store and arranging the silvered driftwood branches over it all. Jack eyeballs it less than critically, walking along the perimeter and kicking branches into approximately the right shape, tossing little bundles of greenery from his pocket in what Ianto's pretty sure are just any random gap in the brush that he sees.

“It took more than a century to figure out how to make it smell right. You wouldn't believe me if I told you some of the things I've thrown on these fires trying to get that _home_ smell.” He dusts his hands off, nudging one last piece of sea silvered wood back into place with the toe of his boot. “Be right back.” Jack snags another, smaller, bundle out of the long duffel and lopes up the path rounding the corner leaving a bemused Welshman wondering why the older man felt the need to disappear to change even as he flops down on the sand and takes off his own shoes and socks, tucking his watch and the contents of his pockets into the toe out of habit. He's still debating whether or not he's supposed to strip out of his shirts _now_ or wait until the fire is lit when Jack appears at his side, rocking on the balls of his feet and staring out to sea with a determination born of discomfort as Ianto drags his eyes upwards. Jack's feet are bare, long toes working themselves into the sand until there's barely a sliver of skin showing between the sand covering his feet and the wide hems of the overlong blood red trousers hanging low off Jack's hips. The rest of him is bare, solid muscles under meters of smooth lightly tanned skin, arches of bone pressing up against it at the lines of his hip and the curve of his clavicle. The bottom corner of Jack's mouth is slightly swollen because that's where he has a bad habit of biting his lip when he's over thinking but the man still grins brightly down at Ianto who smirks up at him.

“You look like Christmas porn all red and white and green like that.” There's a circlet of greenery sitting slightly crooked on the top of Jack's hair that the other man keeps reaching up and fidgeting with. “Well, maybe Yule porn.”

“Haha.” The thin twist of green threatens to slip again when the wind blows Jack's fringe into his eyes.

“It's definitely a good thing.” He wants to ask and Jack must see it in his face, looking out to sea even as he reaches down, levering Ianto up onto his feet.

“I had one last year too, I just burnt it before you work up. Come on,” Jack reaches into pockets hidden by the draping of the trousers and fishes out two long barbeque lighters. “let's get this done before we freeze to death.”

It doesn't take long to set the hay and other tinder between the driftwood and pine alight. The flames snap and gutter fresh and orange, popping out lavender and blue sparks as they begin to set the salt soaked wood aflame. In less than ten minutes the flames are jumping waist high, crackling blues and purples at the edges, yellow and white underneath and Ianto's close enough that the gooseflesh broken out tight along his body begins to ease. The air around them smells strange, sweet and musky on top of the salt and smoke already hanging in the air and Ianto reels back away from the smoke, light headed. Jack stands next to fire, almost close enough to touch and stares into the flames, wreath pulled off his head and clutched tightly in a white knuckle grip. The mans lips move as he whispers into the leaves and needles before dropping it into the greedy flames. The fire flares for a moment and he turns away, pausing long enough to urge Ianto down to the sand with just a tap to the shoulder before striding out to sea. Ianto sits on the sand with legs crossed and chin resting on his fists, slowly warming inside the half ring of fire and glad he's not Jack as the man's calm determined stride breaks with the first wash of frigid brine up his legs.

“Fuck!” The yelp echoes beautifully around the cliffs and Ianto hides his grin behind his fist as Jack grimaces and hops back away from an incoming wave before forcing himself further out into the water. The thick pungent smoke mixing with the cold salt sharp ocean air leaves Ianto feeling hyper aware and strangely lethargic at the same time and he drops his head onto his hands, watching Jack through his lashes as the older man takes a breath deep enough that Ianto can actually see the flex of his back and sings out a single long, soft note, letting it echo around the empty air. He nods, satisfied, and Ianto draws one knee up and rests his head on it to watch.

He's ninety-seven percent certain that he doesn't fall asleep despite the fact that it's been a very long day, but there's three percent of him that's convinced that at some point he actually has since he's not exactly sure how long he listened to the lilting cadences of Jack's voice, made unfamiliar by the easy rolling alien tongue. He feels the man's eyes on him and surreptitiously pinches himself, pushing up onto his knees and rolling his shoulders as an excuse to shake himself a bit. Jack smirks at him but doesn't say a word about the fact that Ianto may not have actually fallen asleep but was damn close to it, settling instead on his heels next to Ianto and arching forward until his back is perfectly bowed and his fingers are pointed towards the waves. Ianto is not nearly as flexible when it comes to bending himself in half and just lets himself slump forward over his knees. He lets himself focus on the sound of Jack's voice, on mapping the pitch and shift of his voice, trying to find the places where languages shift but misses it, too busy letting the oncoming lick of the waves curl against his fingers as Ianto murmurs his own names into the cold sand.

“..Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper.” Jack's voice trembles, his fingers pressing divots into the wet sand before he forces them flat, dropping his head to the sand. His voice is a low, rumbled murmur to the ground, almost lost to the whistle of the wind and the crash of the waves and it's still not enough to cover the sound of Jack whispering his brother's name. Ianto shifts carefully on legs gone to pins and needles, settling back onto his heels closer to Jack until they're pressed hip to hip and threading his fingers through the soft hair at the nape of the Captain's neck.

“I love you Jack.” It's _not_ what he was going to say. He's frozen, staring out to sea with his palm resting too heavily on the bowed neck of the other man and Ianto can't make himself let go or pull away, can't make himself take the words back and doesn't really want to even though he's suddenly terrified Jack will say it back. From the corner of his eye Ianto can see Jack surreptitiously scrub his face against the curve of his shoulder before the older man sits up, gesturing with a lightning fast flicker of fingers, hands cupped close to his heart. Jack looks over at him, eyes over bright and a little red in the firelight because Jack's a bastard who just looks sexily fragile when he's been crying unlike Ianto who comes over all blotchy and unattractive, and slides both hands up the chilled bare planes of the younger man's chest, locking his fingers together behind Ianto's neck. The kiss is soft and sweet in a way they are more and more often lately, a better response to Ianto's impromptu proclamation than words would have been. He lets his hands settle easily around the narrow span of Jack's hips, breathing in the warm air Jack breathes out while his thumbs trace the temptingly low waistband that's been calling his name since Jack stood next to him. A sudden wave breaks up past what Ianto is pretty sure was the tide line, breaking them apart and sending the two of them scurrying to their feet and dancing back closer to the flames, cursing the icy waters amid their laughter.

“Sometimes I _still_ forget the ocean will come for you on Earth. One of the reasons I've never joined the navy.” The furthest ends of the flames have been extinguished by the waves and Jack shrugs. “That's that then. I always hate kicking these out, we used to let them burn until they burnt out at home.”

“You weren't worried about fires?”

“Oh yeah, we were _terrified_ it would burn down all our luscious sand. Come on, leave the middle burning; I shoved the presents in your bag last night and we've technically still got another twenty-five minutes of Christmas left. You can actually get your swag _on_ Christmas day for the first time in...how long?”  


“Oh, four years, easily. Also, say 'swag' again because that was...hilarious.” Ianto sways with the movement as Jack thumps him with his shoulder, tucking his face into the curve of Jack's neck as they laugh. The wind is sharply cold against his bare skin, he has sand in the backs of his knees as well as the crack of his ass, and he's accidentally told Jack he loves him but it seems to have come out fine in the end. Also, they saved the world today so a fairly successful Christmas-backslash-whatever-this-day-is-for-Jack as far as Ianto is concerned. Jack wanders off to bury the damp smoldering ends and Ianto looks over at him kicking sand on top of the rest of the fire and begins to do the same.


End file.
